"I'd rather kill the radio; listen to the rain hit."
July 1, 2009
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The Beauty of Death?
There seems to be a lot of talk of suicide on my Tumblr stream. One poster has decided to pose the following question: if you were going to commit suicide, how would you do it?
A natural enough curiosity, and a conversation we’ve all had at least once in our lives. What bothers me here is the author’s own answer, and the comments that follow.
This author, whom I’ve been following for the photography she frequently posts, finds “terrible glamour” (sounds pretty, right?) in plunging from the ledge of a building (presumably to be visible to as many innocent bystanders as possible- therefore to embed herself in their memories forever).
Perhaps the author imagines cool wind rushing through her hair, her arms outstretched, raindrops pelting her skin as a flash of lightening illuminates her face. She experiences for the first time in her life, the exhilarating rush of knowing, really knowing, that there is truly no turning back. She gains a momentary flash of freedom in knowing this. It is perhaps, the only time she has ever made a real decision - and she feels comfort in its finality.
At the end of her post she wistfully muses, “isn’t there something so beautiful about death?”
It is this contrived, immature whimsy masked as wisdom, that I find so irritating. Yet, her commenter’s all seem to agree, not with the method, but with the glamour, drama and beauty of it all.
One response in particular, seems to sum up the greedy self-indulgence of such fantasies (I paraphrase): she would buy a dozen red roses and pluck the petals from each one. Perhaps she would prick her finger and admire the crimson pearl which forms from the thorn. Her blood would delight her, it is even more red than her roses. She would make a trail with the rose petals. Through the foyer, up the stairs, down the hallway and all the way to the bathtub, which she would line with white candles- wax pooling at their bases. She would fill the tub, drizzle lavender oil and undo her hair, noticing the way it swims around her head. Finally she would take a breath and slit her wrists with a shaving blade. She would die there, in a diluted mixture of blood, water and lavender oil, her hair splayed about her like a crown. And as she died she would wonder, who will find me?
Perhaps there is some beauty in death. But not a death that has been contrived to fulfill some silly, self-serving fantasy. There is no beauty in the death of someone so obsessed with attention that she would literally die just to taste it.
A beautiful death is just like anything else in the world that is truly beautiful- it is organic.
